Talk:Hawn's Mill massacre

New citations
I added more info and citations for most of the existing info, reorganized into sections, and removed the unreferenced tag. There are still a couple of statements that need citations.

The thing is, most of the citations I added come from the same place, an account written by Joseph Young, quoted and referenced by Alvin R. Dyer in "The Refiner's Fire". I haven't verified this particular reference, I don't know if this is acceptable or not.74s181 00:27, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Latter-day Saint vs Latter Day Saint movement
Note to editors, this article is about an event in the history of the Latter Day Saint movement, a common history shared by all churches that trace their history back to Joseph Smith, Jr.. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of these churches, but it is not the only one.

The church organized by Joseph Smith, Jr. went thru several name changes prior to his death, and the consensus of the Wikipedia community is to refer to the church he organized and all successor churches as the Latter Day Saint movement, so please do not change occurences of "Latter Day Saint" to "Latter-day Saint", or occurrences of Latter Day Saint movement to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thank you. 74s181 12:13, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Mormon War Template
The massacre is part of the overall Mormon War to evict the Mormons from Missouri and should not be deleted from this article. The massacre was a big factor in the surrender of Joseph Smith, Jr. shortly after the massacre. Every single history of the Mormon War in Missouri includes the Haun's Mill massacre. Americasroof 22:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)


 * There are actually numerous history books which exclude the massacre despite including the Mormon War, such as Perry McCandless’ 1972 A History of Missouri, Edwin C. McReynold's 1962 Missouri: A History of the Crossroads State, and the 1982 Heritage of Missouri by Duane G. Meyer. Apianostari (talk) 01:12, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Incidents involving the Livingston County Cannon
The following information was reverted because it was not referenced and inappropriately capitalized. In doing a spot google check on it, I think the information was a good faith effort and the information supplied here is probably accurate. Here's a Livingston County account The cannon issue raises some interesting aspects. The cannon is mentioned in the article. I think the comment about sheriff of Livingston County would be more logical than sheriff of Caldwell County since Caldwell was intended to be the Mormon county. Anyway below is the information that was just deleted. Americasroof 02:49, 14 October 2007 (UTC)


 * jENNINGS RECIEVED THE EXTERMINATION ORDER AT WOOLSEY FARM BY RUNNER JOHNATHAN J DRYDEN, ACORDING TO BOGGS'S LETTER. DRYDEN WAS ON HIS WAY TO FARWEST AND GEN. CLARK.


 * dANIEL aSHBY WAS STATE LEGISLATOR, NOT CHARLES.


 * Jennings was Sheriff of Chilicothe, Livingston Coyunty, not cALDWELL


 * Jennings was sherriff of Chillicothe. His county cannon had been stolen by the mormnons on Oct 21, 1838.


 * Yes, I'm the one who reverted it for the reasons stated. I don't object to it being included, as long as someone takes the time to properly incorporate it into the article.  I figured that it was better to remove it and let someone fix it later. Are you volunteering to do this? &mdash; Val42 02:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I hope there was no perception that I was anyway slamming the revert. It had to be done.  I just wanted to save the info to review because I think it is all legitimate and adds a lot to the story.  If we can confirm that Jennings received the extermination order prior to the attack that is pretty much a smoking gun for a cause/effect.  I've never seen a formal explanation on the Missouri side on why Hauns Mill was attacked.  The cannon poses interesting questions.  The history I mentioned earlier says it came from DeWitt (which I believe was a Mormon settlement).  It was captured by the Missourians and then recaptured by the Mormons.  There were two Ashbys in the Missouri General Assembly at this time.  Charles was from Livingston County (and so that explains why he is confused in histories with Daniel who was also from northern Missouri.  I will try to make some of the edits if I can get to it.  The Missouri Secretary of State office has a lot of first hand official letters about the event (and is probably the source for the above).  I have to find the link again. Americasroof 13:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism to Hauns Mill Sign
Thanks for the photo of the marker showing the history of Haun's Mill which was shot on Aug 4, 2006. My overview of the site shot on September 10, 2007 shows a stump where the sign was. Haun's Mill is out in the middle of a very rural area. It's a shame it was vandalized.Americasroof 20:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Settlers weren't deliberately disobedient to Smith's counsel. Haun misled them.
I was skim reading this article today, and overall, it looks pretty good. However, I think that ANY WP article has room for improvement, and so I would like to suggest adding a point that has not been discussed in this article. There was no deliberate disobedience to the counsel of Smith on the part of the settlers. Some historical records show that Smith instructed Haun to move all the people out of the settlement prior to the massacre, or at least tell them that he (Smith) advised that they do so. However, Haun came back from this conversation with Smith and never said word one to the settler's about Smith's counsel. So, if there was ANY disobedience, it was on the part of Haun, NOT the settlers in general. Knowing what I know about the way the early "Saints" felt about "Brother Joseph," I know that most of the Saints who were there would have cleared out from the settlement if Haun had told them that Smith advised that they do so. Haun's choice to not do so deprived THEM of the right to choose for themselves, because as far as the settlers knew, no instruction had been given pertaining to doing anything else other than staying where they were at. As a matter of fact, these same historical records I referred to show that Haun came back from this meeting with Smith and told them to stay where they were, even putting them under covenant to stick together and not leave unless he (Haun) instructed them otherwise. I have verification of these facts for anyone who is interested. For now, though, with the facts as I have just laid them out, I think they perhaps call for a revision of that particular WP section about them. Any thoughts? --Jgstokes-We can disagree without being disagreeable (talk) 21:15, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Jacob Haun, not a Mormon?
I am confused. According to this article, Haun was not a Mormon. But in "The Work and the Glory," a historical fiction series, it is explained in volume 4 that Haun was not only a Mormon but that he deliberately ignored counsel from Joseph Smith to vacate the settlement and lead the settlers to one of the Church's strongholds, such as Adam-Ondi-Ahman or Jackson County. For verification of these facts, see "Church History in the Fulness of Times," pg. 201. Pg. 183 of the same volume says Haun's Mill was a Mormon settlement established by Haun. With these evidences, how can we justify the claim that Haun was not a Mormon? I feel this needs to be fixed. Thoughts? --Jgstokes-We can disagree without being disagreeable (talk) 06:41, 12 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Lund acknowledges that The Work and the Glory series is fiction, and as with all historical fiction it cannot be taken as literal fact, regardless of how accurate the author tries to be with certain details. On the other hand Alexander L. Baugh is a recognized historian, and I would give more credence to his statements (as reported in the Deseret New article in the citation) on this matter than Lund's artistic representation.


 * The Church History In The Fulness Of Times (Student Manual) in Chapter Fifteen: The Church in Northern Missouri, 1836–38 says the following: "Meanwhile, early in August, W. W. Phelps and John Whitmer located a site for a city, which they designated Far West, in northern Ray County. It was twelve miles west of Haun’s Mill, a small Mormon settlement established by Jacob Haun on Shoal Creek a year earlier. The Saints began gathering in the late summer and fall, and soon Far West and numerous smaller settlements sprang into existence." Nowhere that I can see does it say that Hawn was a Mormon. The Encyclopedia of Mormonism, in it's entry on the Haun's Mill massacre, does not state that Hawn was a Mormon. There are several other references that I looked up (based on the EoM article's references list) that also made no mention of Hawn as a Mormon.


 * As the Deseret News article states, there is a perception issue within Mormon studies/Mormon culture/Mormon folklore, which is not born-out by actual recent historical research, and this DN article is a wp:RS to support this understanding. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 23:47, 12 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Kudos to 208.81.184.4 for solid research. Based on discussion above, however, I think the best that can be said is that it's indeterminate whether or not Hawn was LDS. Just MHO. &mdash; Fr&epsilon;ckl&epsilon;fσσt | Talk 15:42, 13 June 2013 (UTC)


 * In recent research titled Jacob Hawn and the Hawn’s Mill Massacre: Missouri Millwright and Oregon Pioneer, by Alexander L. Baugh, he specifically notes, "After collecting and compiling all the information I could find on Jacob and Harriett Hawn, I have come to the conclusion that the Hawns were not affiliated with Mormonism before coming to Missouri in late 1835, and in fact, were never Mormons." Wrenoud (talk) 18:34, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

POV and Unreliable sources
Two of the more WP:POV statements use Unreliable sources to back up the claim. I have tagged both a "[not in citation given]"
 * 1. Part III: Individual Affidavits from the National Archives (M–Z) is used to cite, "William Reynolds put his musket against Sardius's skull and blew off the top of his head, killing him."
 * First Part III: Individual Affidavits from the National Archives (M–Z) is a Dead Link. Using wayback, I find that the last time this page was active was 2013.  If you go to the 2013 archive the only Williams to appear are William Niswanger" and "William Laughlin".  No where is there a "William Reynolds" nor do the words "Reynolds", "musket", or "Sardius" appear anywhere.  This source had Failed verification.
 * - The dead link, that never mentioned the incident, was replaced with . It contained the missing information.  However it clearly says "Glaze, of Carroll county", killed Sardius Smith, not William Reynolds. Reynolds' quote was just used as a justification of "Glaze"'s actions.--- ARTEST4ECHO(Talk) 21:28, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * 2. History of the Church V III is used to cite the statement, "Although participants in the massacre boasted of their acts for years, none of the Missouri attackers were ever brought to trial".
 * No where between pages 182 and 186 dose it address the Post massacre behavior of participants in the massacre. Pages 182-186 discuss the "Gathering of the Mob at Richmond", "Gen. Clark's Movements", and "Joseph Young's Narrative of the Massacre at Haun's Mills".  NOTHING is mentioned about the POST massacre and Mormon War events until page 197 and that is the Trial of Joseph Smith et all.  No mention of any request for trial nor the behavior of the participants in the massacre occurs.  This source had Failed verification.

It is quite possible that these statements are correct, so I have not removed them. However as they are the more controversial and POVish statements, they need proper citations, or they should be removed.--- ARTEST4ECHO(Talk) 16:19, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Additionally alot of the cited sources don't link to anything, making it harder to verify. The have been tagged as needed "Full citations" for a long time.  However, that is really just a maintenance problem. They just need to be fixed.--- ARTEST4ECHO(Talk) 16:27, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There are many, many sources for this claim. The problem is that few would meet Wikipedia's criteria as a reliable source. The best I could find in a 10 minute search was a book published by Random House. As such I tweaked the wording to be in line with what that book says. Dave (talk) 17:03, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
 * And with that said, I'll have to dig deeper, the book is a fictional story set against actual history. As such, while this section is recounting fact, it isn't usable as a source. I'll dig some more. Dave (talk) 17:07, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Haun's Mill massacre. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120511042935/http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsfaithblog/54072727-180/missouri-haun-mill-church.html.csp to http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsfaithblog/54072727-180/missouri-haun-mill-church.html.csp

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 17:51, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

"many women were assaulted"
Is assaulted being used here as a euphemism for "sexually assaulted", or in plain English "raped"? If so, I feel it should be replaced by a clearer term - as a native speaker of British English I'm uncertain about what exactly happened to the women, since "assaulted" could refer to any form of attack.213.127.210.95 (talk) 14:26, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Spelling of Hawn's/Haun's Mill massacre
Most of the page adheres to the spelling laid out in Alexander L. Baugh 's article Jacob Hawn and the Hawn’s Mill Massacre: Missouri Millwright and Oregon Pioneer. However, the title and the first sentence do not reflect this. I propose that the article's title should be changed from "Haun" to "Hawn" and that the first sentence should be The Hawn’s Mill Massacre (also Haun’s Mill Massacre). The spelling of Haun should only be used if spelled that way in older articles/books, the formal name of art work, if spelled so in direct quotations, and etc. Apianostari (talk) 01:04, 15 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't think it matters either way. There's A LOT of literature out there that uses the spelling Haun, so regardless of which spelling is used for the article title, there still needs to be the other as an alternate title and an explanation as to why the two spellings. With that said, if you want to move the article, no objection from me either. Dave (talk) 02:42, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, "Haun" would be in parentheses in the title so the two are clearly associated. I agree that there needs to be an explanation. The last sentence in the introduction mentions the spelling variation briefly but vaguely and could be fleshed out or moved to a new section even. Yes, a lot of older literature uses "Haun" and that will always remain, so it is important to leave that as an alternate. Recent literature by Mormon studies scholars seem to have been using "Hawn" though. Apianostari (talk) 17:51, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Moved the page per the above suggestion and the significant shift to follow the Hawn spelling in more recent literature. I note that the churches today in announcing the transfer of the Kirtland temple, along with other historic sites and artifacts including items associated with the massacre, also used "Hawn".--Michael Snow (talk) 01:58, 6 March 2024 (UTC)